‘Those are the Hardesty colours - well, they seem to have prospered in the last generation. And that tasselled one would be the Beckerts: they were always given to show. Wait. Stop here.’

I halted, and I swear I felt a vibration of tension from the pendant. The pavilion before us was pitched almost in line with those of the Bingtown Traders’ tents, as if to claim near-equal status. Whereas the Trader pavilions bore the simple colours of each of the old Bingtown families, the newcomers’ tents were striped or particoloured. The pavilion before me was white and green. The family was arrayed within as if for a portrait; parents and grown children sat about a table heavy with a rich morning repast. Two young men in the robes of Bingtown Traders were guests there. From a separate, higher table, on tall chairs almost like thrones, an elderly couple looked down benevolently on their family. The matriarch was a small plump woman. Her thinning white hair was carefully coiffed and rings adorned her pale little hands. The emerald at her throat seemed to burn with a green fire. Beside her sat a handsome old man, as elegantly dressed and groomed. As I looked at him, I felt the pendant share my glance. From it, I felt a sudden wave of hatred greater than any I had ever known. Mingled with it was fury, and outrage that he and the wife he had bought with Aubretia’s money had both outlived her in luxury aid grace. Hardship and privation, I now saw, had cut short my grandmother’s life. Not just wealth and respect, but life itself he had stolen from her.

‘But for your betrayal, Howarth, Aubretia Lantis would still be alive!’

The words rang out from my throat. I scarce recognized my own voice. All about me, the festivities faltered. Conversation in the adjoining pavilions ceased.